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his mother had moved around with the circus while his father returned to New York, teaching statistics at New York University, and forgetting Christmases and Joe’s birthdays.
    Vivian moved the camera to show a priest walking behind his mother. The man looked fresh out of missionary school. His fresh-scrubbed face was pink, and his priest’s collar looked too tight. He clutched a Bible and marched with the determined steps of an African explorer about to set off into the jungle. Joe bet it was his first funeral.
    The priest nodded to his mother, then to Vivian, as did the chess club, even though they didn’t know who Vivian was. Joe’s mother, however, gave her such a knowing glance that he inched back in his flimsy hotel chair. His mother pressed two (blue) fingers to her lips and dropped them to her side. That was the secret “I love you” sign she and Joe had invented when he was a kid. He hadn’t seen it in years, but he instinctively made it back, even though she couldn’t see him.
    The priest lined his mother, her paramour, and the retired professors in front of the wall. Vivian fell in last. A giant arrangement of flowers Joe had selected online stood on an easel next to his mother like a proxy for her son. It wasn’t enough, of course—she needed a flesh-and-blood son to hold her hand—but it was the best he could do right now.
    Words were intoned, but Vivian’s microphone picked up mostly wind and the faint drone of traffic. It didn’t matter anyway. The priest hadn’t known his father, so what could he say that Joe needed to hear?
    He closed his eyes and prayed for his father. He prayed death had brought his father peace from the demons that had haunted him. He hadn’t been an easy man, and there must have been reasons.
    But even now Joe couldn’t forgive him everything. The demons that his father had set upon Joe would be with him always. As they say, we carry the dead with us.
    When he opened his eyes again, the priest had finished. His mother lifted the urn to hip height and slid it into an empty niche in the stone wall. Her lips moved as if she whispered something, but he couldn’t make out the words. He turned the volume up to full, but heard only the murmur of traffic and the slamming of a faraway door.

Chapter 5
    Vivian hated funerals. She’d attended plenty back in the service, and they’d never offered her comfort or closure. They made her angry that everyone was boxed up in the same generic ritual, just like their bodies were boxed up in wooden caskets. When she died, she wanted to have her ashes scattered out the back of an airplane. Then the mourners could parachute after and go have a beer when they landed—adrenaline and alcohol would be a good send-off.
    If her mother outlived her, though, Vivian knew she’d insist on this kind of awkward service, where everyone felt compelled to make up something nice, maybe toss in a joke, and cry. At Vivian’s funeral, Lucy would feel guilty because she let her big sister fall off some indoor climbing wall and die and sad because she’d inherited Vivian’s shoes. Vivian’s shoes were too boring for Lucy. She suppressed a smile.
    A couple of guys from the funeral home lifted the stone block into place, and that was it. Nobody but the priest gave a eulogy, which was weird. It looked like it was over.
    One more thing she had to do, although Tesla hadn’t told her to, and probably didn’t want her to. Whatever. It was the right thing to do.
    She walked over to Mrs. Tesla and held out her hand. “My name is Vivian Torres. I’m here on behalf of your son.”
    The woman shook her hand. She wore silk gloves, like a movie star, but her tiny hand was surprisingly strong.
    “Thank you for coming.” Mrs. Tesla waved her hand at the phone in her pocket. “And thank you, too, Joe.”
    “Would you like to speak to him, ma’am?” Vivian fished the phone out of her pocket. Tesla would probably be furious he was being ambushed like this, but the